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Anecdotally, I had the opposite experience!

> You'll find that the people that break down at the slightest criticism the most are those that were criticised the most as children as well. Those that had no room for being anything other than perfect. Where value was obtained from performance.

My childhood fits this.

> "Anti-fragile attitude" when it comes to criticism is not built by tolerance

I DID learn these by tolerance!

> self-acceptance and compassion. And these values are learned early on.

I learned these LATE on, in college. I feel like it's typical for a kid, but I was insecure and very much afraid of failure. But when I encountered sustained failure despite my best efforts, it pushed my "attached to performance" ego to the breaking point. That ego broken, I was forced to decoupled my sense of self worth from my performance. I didn't do it consciously, either; it sort of just happened one day. And I literally mean on a day. I felt it the day it happened. It felt like a weight had been lifted, and I found myself unable to care as much, just all of a sudden. I wondered if it was depression, but I felt happier than I ever felt before.

That nerfed my performance somewhat, since it's no longer driven by a frantic self-flagellatory imperative to prove my self-worth, but it also made my quality of life much higher, which I consider an easy trade.

I still care about what I do, and I very much still try to do a good job. I'm just not terrorized when I don't. I feel bad when I don't, but not "I'M A PIECE OF SHIT" bad. It's a more impersonal bad. It also allows me to sincerely welcome criticism; there's no sting to it at all unless I did something colossally stupid and/or the criticism is, like, downright verbally abusive or something (which it's never been so far :p).



I find this to be an incredibly well-balanced and mature measure of one's self. You should be proud that you were able to reach this level of self-reflection and clarity. Many people never get there, so kudos to you.


College is not late to learn this. Many people never learn at all.




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